


Walk With Me

by Optimistic_Lyricist



Category: Professional Wrestling, WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Wrestling, Bar, Drinking, Elias - Freeform, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Guitar, Guitars, Inspired by Music, M/M, Monday Night Raw - Freeform, Multi, Music, Musicians, NXT - Freeform, Professional Wrestling - Freeform, Smackdown Live - Freeform, Smut, WWE - Freeform, WWE NXT, Wrestling, elias samson - Freeform, rolling stone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 23:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Optimistic_Lyricist/pseuds/Optimistic_Lyricist
Summary: AU Every chapter is a one-shot of Elias going from bar to bar for different guitar playing gigs as he runs into a wide array of eccentric characters, some represented by WWE Superstars.





	Walk With Me

 “Happy birthday to you…

 

Happy birthday to you…

 

Happy birthday, dear Elias. Happy birthday to YOU!”

 

Young seven year old Elias Samson sat in the middle of his birthday party, looking like a deer caught in headlights; dazed and confused. It wasn’t how he felt. Just how he always looked. Like a lost Pomeranian poodle. For a boy his age, Elias was something of a loner, and on the quiet side. He was basically a mute. If his mother didn’t know any better, she’d think he was deaf or dumb. Or both.

 

“Honey, blow out your candles,” that same mother whispered into her son’s ear. The boy was surrounded by several of his family members--and no friends--in the backyard of their home, which had been decorated in frilly silly strings and vibrant blue balloons. It wasn’t much, but it was the best that a single mother could do on a budget.

 

Without an iota of emotion, the boy blew his candles out and was met with an elated response from a crowd of heavyset aunts, uncles sporting beer bellies, and cousins all well over Elias’s age. The moment that the flame evaporated, several family members scattered and socialized among themselves. Elias had not left his seat.

 

Concerned, his mother kneeled down to her son’s level. “Hey honey,” Shirley started off. “You don’t think you want to...play with all of the cool gifts you got today? Maybe go say hi to your Aunt Eliza? She just got here. She’d love to see you.”

 

No answer from the boy. Blank stare.

 

“You want me to keep you company here at least?” Shirley expressed even more concern.

 

Again, no answer.

 

It was in that moment that Shirley was approached by her sister. Elias could not hear what the two adults were whispering to each other about. He did, however, see his mother’s annoyed expression. He then saw his mother look back to see a grizzled man around his mother’s age walk into the party through the side of the house, with a bulkily shaped case in his hand that caught young Elias’s eye. The man exchanged looks with Elias’s mother.

 

His look: satisfied, longing, nostalgic.

 

Her look: irritated.

 

“Stay here.” She demanded of her son. “Watch him,” she ordered her sister.

 

The sister nodded before putting on a fraudulent smile and kneeling down to the child’s level, much like her older sister did earlier. The sister hugged the boy tightly, in addition to kneeling.

 

“Hi, Elias! It’s me, Aunt Lo! Remember me?” Lo tried to banter with her nephew, but Elias was too fixated on his parents bickering in the distance.

 

“Jeff, you’re late!” Elias watched his mother squeal.

 

“Please, Shirley, not in front of the kid.” Elias watched his father plead with his ex-wife.

 

Noticing what caught Elias’s attention, Lo tried to avert his attention by stepping in front of the boy’s vision.

 

“Oh, don’t mind them,” Lo tried to explain. “They’re...just...catching up. Grown up talk, you know?” Lo snickered. “Well, you don’t know, ‘cause you’re not a grown up yet, but trust me, it’s not what it’s all cracked up to be.” Lo snickered harder. “That’s why you should stay at age…” Lo paused, before glancing quickly at the number on Elias’s birthday cake. “...Seven! Age seven. Stay seven for as long as you can, okay?” She playfully bopped her nephew’s nose with her fingertip, to no response whatsoever.

 

It was in this moment that the pairing was approached by that same grizzled man. Up, close, and personal, the man’s shoulders looked more like boulders piercing through his leather jacket, from young Elias’s perspective.

 

“Mind if I have a minute here with my son?” A gruff, thunderous voice emerged from the lips of Elias’s father. Lo looked reluctant--trepidatious even--to adhere to Jeff’s request, so she looked to her older sister for approval. When Shirley gave her sister an unenthusiastic--but still approving--nod, Lo glared at the man who broke her sister’s heart, before walking away.

 

Much like his ex-wife and his former sister-in-law before him, Jeff kneeled down to his son’s level. As he kneeled down, he placed the mysterious case beside him on the ground. Elias's eyes did not leave the sight of that case. “Don’t mind her, kid. Her and your mother are just…” Before he could finish his thought, he thinks he better not slander Elias’s mother, or her sister. Not to Elias. “...you’ll get it when you’re older, m’kay?”

 

Silence from Elias, of course.

 

“So, seven, huh? How’s it feel?” He tried to exchange banter with his son, but his son had nothing to exchange verbally in return. “Still not talking these days, huh?”

 

Elias did not answer, but Jeff got the message loud and clear. He considered that an answer in itself.

 

“Right…” A bit of awkward silence commences before Jeff realizes that his son’s eyes remain fixated on his mysterious case. A smirk crosses the older man’s face at the realization. “Oh, what ya looking at?” The older man played coy for a moment. “What, you looking at this?” He knocked on the case to catch his son’s attention, which inspired Elias to look up at his dad for the first time. “Wanna see what’s inside?”

 

The boy eagerly nodded his head. This was the first time the boy expressed a semblance of emotion all day. This brought a big fat grin across his father’s face.

 

“Well, today’s your lucky day, kid.” His father reassured as he slowly unbuckled the case open, teasing the surprise inside for his son. “Because, you see, this right here is your birthday present. Now, your mother told me you’ve been a good boy all year, and if you ask me, I think good boys should get good toys as a reward for being so darn good.”

 

He creaked the present open just enough for Elias to try and stick his fingers inside. Before he could, Jeff closed the case shut. “BUT, you’ve got to promise me something, okay?” Jeff asked, to which Elias nodded. “Okay, if I give this to you, you’ve got to treat this thing special, got it? Love it like you would a woma...uh...I mean, your favorite cartoon, or something. Play with it. Clean it. Never lose it. Never give it away. Because, you see, this thing here is a relic. Passed down from my grandfather, to my father, to me, and now to you. This thing is precious. My father took care of it and loved it. I did the same, and I expect you to do the same. Even after I’m long gone. I mean, gone for good, you know? Understand?”

 

His son nodded again.

 

Jeff chuckled. “Still not the talking type, huh? Well, that’s okay. Maybe this’ll help you find your voice.”

 

With that said, he opened his case, and pulled out a big acoustic guitar. It was old, and the wear and tear on the guitar was evident, but that did not cease Elias’s amazement and intrigue in the slightest. Elias’s eyes bugged open wide at the sight of this rusted little gem that, in his eyes, shined brighter than a thousand suns.

 

Jeff clasped the guitar in his own hands, staring at it with tender passion for a moment before handing it to his son. “Here you go.” He put the guitar strap around his son’s shoulder.

 

“Stunning, ain’t it?” Jeff asked with a gleam in his eye. “Real purdy lil thing.” As his son admired his new gift, Jeff took a moment to look back, and caught a hateful glare from his ex-wife. Jeff sighed, and looked back to his son.

 

“Now, I’ll be honest with you for a sec, kid,” Jeff started. “Your mother won’t let me stay here. Not for much longer. But, I’ll take a couple minutes to show you how this thing works.”

 

Jeff picked his son up, took his spot in his chair, and placed the boy on his knee. There, he guided his son on where to place his hands on the guitar.

 

“See, you place your right hand here...and you use your other hand to strum these strings.”

 

With the guidance of his father, Elias does just that. For the first time ever, he strums the guitar.

 

**23 Years Later**

Over two decades later, the boy is now a man. Now just as muscular and grizzled as his father before him.

 

Now, that man has just strum that same tattered down guitar in front of an arena of over 20,000 attendees for a concert at Madison Square Garden. He sits on stage in the pitch black dark. The only light in the room is the spotlight reigning down on him, and the flashes of photography in the distance. Elias has yet to sing a word, and yet the arena echoes with the sound of screaming, elated fans, and chants of his own name.

 

“Elias! Elias! Elias!”

 

With the microphone in front of him, Elias purses his lips onto it to echo his now infamous words. The words that have made him a household name in multiple countries around the world:

 

“Who wants to Walk with Elias?”

 

Somehow, the already raucous crowd gets even louder, giving a belted ovation in unison.

 

Without further ado, Elias strums his guitar.

 

“Elias! Elias! Elias!”

 

But it was all a dream.

 

In reality, the only person screaming his name was the bar manager shaking the sleeping musician backstage at a bar.

 

“Elias! Elias! Wake up!” The manager ferociously shook the guitarist, until his eyes belched open. “Wake up! You’re up next.”

 

Elias wipes his eyes, scratches his beard, and sighs at the realization that his dreams of success were merely fictional. His reality was that once again, he was ready to play a song for a drunken crowd for chump change.

 

“Wake up! You ready or not?” The bar manager need reassurance.

 

“Let’s do this.” Elias reassured him. Elias groggily grabbed his rusty guitar, wrapped it around him, and made his way through the curtain for another performance.

 

But first, as always, the bartender introduces him to a rowdy, inebriated crowd:

 

“Ladies and gentlemen...Elias.”


End file.
